The research found that in Newcastle-under-Lyme, residents are asked to sort their waste into nine different bins and bags.

A further 20 councils provide seven bins for food waste, different recycling streams and other rubbish. More than 100 town halls ask residents to sort rubbish into 5 or more bins.

Residents in these areas say it is impossible to find room in the house for all the different bins and complain that the system is too complicated and complex.

[snip]

In Newcastle-under-Lyme Council, north Staffordshire, residents are asked to dump food waste in a silver slop bucket for food waste, which is then emptied into a larger, green outdoor bin every week. There is a pink bag for plastic bottles, a blue box for glass, foil, tins and aerosols, a green bag for cardboard, a white bag for textiles and blue bags for paper and magazines, which are all collected on alternate weeks with garden waste and black bin bags.

Sylvia Butler, 59, a retired teacher and former councillor in the area, said many residents are just dumping recycling in black bin bags rather than bothering to sort waste.

It is too complicated and too complex, she said. Other areas have three containers, we have nine, it is just too confusing, she said.

[snip]

At a time when council budgets are already under extreme pressure, councils will not want to spend money on unnecessary bins so that they can meet recycling targets and avoid being hit by heavy European Union fines.....

Here in our community it’s optional but costs more. We compost but don’t recycle. Our son’s girlfriend was disturbed by that and asked several times where to put her soda cans. My husband did his master’s thesis on recycling 35 years ago and told her more than once that it expends more energy to recycle aluminum that it does to generate it new from ore. Glass is made from sand and water. He does take plastic bags back to the grocery store and we don’t buy stuff in plastic bottles as a rule. The other conversation with son and his now former girlfriend is whether to burn at our farm out in the country. I burn old client files and we also burn a lot of brush. They thought we should shred the files. We point out that a truck burns fossil fuel to pick up the stuff, shred it, and then dump it in the land fill where big trucks push it around. We just burn it. Clear flame, little residue. Natural process.

21
posted on 02/17/2011 3:52:58 AM PST
by Mercat
( I remained nestled in cognitive dissonance)

Aluminum cans always get put in the recycle bin. Those always have value. Glass bottles and newspapers do but only for convenience. They probably go into the landfill. Half the time glass goes in w/ regular garbage

A further 20 councils provide seven bins for food waste, different recycling streams and other rubbish.

At first, I interpreted "rubbish" to mean its more common definition of "nonsense." Then I realized they were using it to mean "trash." It makes a lot of sense the way I first (mis)read it.

In Newcastle-under-Lyme Council, north Staffordshire, residents are asked to dump food waste in a silver slop bucket for food waste, which is then emptied into a larger, green outdoor bin every week.

I can see some major health issues here. Throughout history, epidemics have been initiated and maintained by poor sanitation conditions that allow pathogens and disease carrying pests to fluorish. It's nice to see that England has forgotten its disease-ridden past and is going back to the old ways (/sarc).

30
posted on 02/17/2011 4:16:01 AM PST
by exDemMom
(Now that I've finally accepted that I'm living a bad hair life, I'm more at peace with the world.)

Liberals always over reach, they can’t help it. They’re like a camel pushing into the tent. It’s never enough and any opening you give them leads to dumbing down, dependency and the eventual decay of society.

Time to recycle our way of thinking about the circus act they’ve set out for us to perform.

My trash pick up is not included with my taxes, I pay a contractor $50 quarterly to pick it up. Officially, they won’t accept old tires or yard waste, other than those two items, they pick up whatever I put to the curb, in cans or bags. If I have an old stove or refrigerator, they will pick that up too, all I have to do is give them a couple days notice.

The actual pick up guys have told me “unofficially”, that they will pick up tires too and yard waste, if it isn’t too excessive. It probably doesn’t hurt that I give them Christmas presents every year and thank them occasionally for doing a great job. I have even written to their company commending them. If the occasional raccoon knocks over a can or tears into a bag, they pick that up too.

For $200 per year, I pile it out there on Wednesday and they pick it up. Free enterprise is great.

If all the town residents lined up every morning on Main Street, dropped their pants, got down on their hands and knees, and waited patiently while the town police “did” each and every one of them, one at a time, who would you find more despicable, the people or the police?

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